When Liu Xiang went down with an injury during the 110-meter hurdles in London, the nation’s most populous country was gripped by disappointment as its leading track star failed to finish a race for the second consecutive Olympic Games. Yet Xiang managed to salve those wounds and provide a touching epitaph to the 29-year-old’s Olympic career when he hobbled to the final hurdle on the London course and kiss it, providing a poignant capstone to his career that felt akin to a wrestler leaving his shoes in the center of the ring.

Now, weeks later, that seemingly spontaneous moment has been tarnished with revelations that it was apparently scripted by Chinese state-run television CCTV. Reports that the entire send-off was premeditated began to emerge on Tuesday (and were brought to Fourth Place Medal’s attention by USA Today’s Chris Chase) when the head of CCTV’s on-air commentary unit admitted to the Nanjing Oriental Guardian that the group had four scripted Liu endings. Eventually, the primary commentator for the event, Yang Jian, employed the most dramatic possible conclusion, with Liu limping to the final hurdle to finish a race in which he had not crossed a finish line during his final two Olympic Games.

There is ample reason to believe that the Chinese government would have an incentive for scripting a compelling conclusion to Liu’s Olympic career. According to CNN and Forbes Magazine, Liu’s endorsement contracts skyrocketed after his unexpected gold medal in Athens, leading to a windfall of more than $25 million annually as he pushed every product from Nike to BMW, with smaller deals with Chinese milk companies and nutrition supplements mixed in for good measure.

“When I lost my balance at the first hurdle, I felt my foot was whipped by someone and then I fell,” he recalled. “I didn’t know what was going on and just felt a lot of pain. I was sitting on the ground in pain and felt totally blank.”

“When a stadium worker pushed out a wheelchair, I saw it and didn’t want to sit in it,” he added. “So I hopped to the finish line. When I passed the final hurdle, this thought just popped up in my mind and I wanted to kiss that hurdle.”

Whether or not you believe that official storyline is up to you. The Chinese public seems to retain a healthy skepticism of Liu’s claims, with users of Weibo, a Chinese service similar to Twitter, expressing shock and often demanding an apology from the highly compensated sprinter for his role in a “world class farce.”

Those comments just prove that no matter how hard it tries, CCTV and the Chinese government can’t completely control or manipulate user reaction, even if they have a hand in molding the experience that provokes it in the first place.